When he walks into Turner Hall Thursday to launch the city’s first Minority Health Film Festival, Charlamagne tha God will have a soft spot for the audience. Milwaukee's V-100.7 Jams was the first station to syndicate his “Breakfast Club” talk show in 2013.

Six years later, Charlamagne’s no-holds-barred interview style has made waves across the country and landed him air time this year with major presidential contenders. Recently he’s used that platform to talk about mental health and his memoir, “Shook One: Anxiety Playing Tricks on Me."

He's a big get for the festival organizers at Milwaukee Film, who hope he'll inspire hundreds of Milwaukeeans to start conversations about mental health.

“In order for us to heal, we gotta tell our stories,” Charlamagne said in an interview. “That’s the biggest thing I would tell the city of Milwaukee: Just don’t be afraid to share your story.”

The festival, Sept. 12-15, includes eight films, a health fair and several community forums on topics like mental health, healthy eating, access to health care and housing.

It started with Geraud Blanks, director of Black Lens and community festivals for Milwaukee Film. He wanted to see more conversations about health in black communities and saw similar needs in other communities of color — all of whom had been disenfranchised and hurt by medical systems in the past, he said.

“All of these communities have something in common: that historically we have not talked about or been as open about our health needs and concerns,” Blanks said. “Some of that comes from a mistrust of institutionalized medicine, and also it comes from culturally this need to keep certain things ‘in-house.’ "

“This was a mode of survival, but now what you see in generation after generation is these communities aren’t talking about very serious issues.”

With sponsorship from Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin, Blanks had the money to dream big. He thought of Charlamagne, whose frequent and forthright endorsements of therapy had inspired Blanks to try it.

“You’ve got to do it because it can be the difference between life and death,” Blanks said. “I've got three kids, work full time, and yet I have to find time for therapy.”

Charlamagne comes with controversy. In his book, he addresses several of his more problematic moments, acknowledging the show was “rightfully slammed” in 2017 after a guest joked about violence against transgender people.

Blanks, who will moderate the conversation with Charlamagne, said the segment gave him pause.

“I was not a fan of how Charlamagne handled that, in part because for me, one of the missions of Black Lens is to create a safe space for black women, black queer community, black trans community,” Blanks. “At the same time, I’ve seen the growth. He would not make those same comments in 2019.”

In an interview Monday, Charlamagne said he had hosted transgender activists in a conversation that morning and was working to bring more to the table as he’s learned about the high rates of violence and suicide they face.

“Clearly an injustice is happening,” he said. “If injustice happens to black people anywhere it’s a threat to black people’s justice everywhere.”

Blanks said his team considered other candidates, including mental health professionals, but thought Charlamagne could make the biggest impact.

“I said we can bring in a clinician but you’re not going to reach a 17- or 18-year-old young black male the way Charlamagne will,” Blanks said.

Geraud Blanks of Milwaukee Film helped organize the city's first Minority Health Film Festival.(Photo: Provided by Milwaukee Film)

Charlamagne said his main goal is to make people feel more comfortable talking about mental health and getting help.

“I’m not going to sit here and act like my anxiety is something I’m super comfortable talking about,” Charlamagne said. “Like man, that’s like pressing on an open wound. But that lets me know I’m growing."

He said leaders must find solutions that meet the scope of the problem and that Milwaukee’s history of racism and segregation has traumatized much of the population.

“You’re dealing with people that have already been traumatized by what this country has done to us and then you’re dealing with people traumatized by what’s happening to us in the hoods every day,” Charlamagne said. “Once we’re able to deal with that we’ll be able to stop redistributing pain to each other.”

Every black person in the country should get free therapy and psychiatry, Charlamagne said, “just because of all the trauma that has been induced on us in this country.”

This and other reparations should be considered first steps toward healing a nation, he said.

“Generational curses will keep going until they run into somebody who’s willing to break them,” Charlamagne said. “This is the beginning of healing as a country trying to break cycles — a country that systemically put a group of people in really bad positions so now they have to do something systemically to get people out.”

Discussions about systemic racism will permeate the festival, including the keynote address by Harriet Washington, author of “Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present.”

The festival will also celebrate ways communities of color have been resilient and highlight organizations lifting them up.

The opening film Friday, “Save Me,” is a homegrown tale of a Hmong girl who finds her way through grief and depression by learning to accept herself “in between the two worlds of the Hmong and Western life that she lives in.”

An actor sits by a fountain in "Save Me," a Milwaukee-made film airing at the Minority Health Film Fest.(Photo: Provided by Thay Yang)

The film grew from a play by Mai Zoua Vang, who produced it while a student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. TV producer Dawn Yang saw the play last year, the same week a young Hmong man she knew died by suicide.

“He had everything going for him so when I saw the play it pretty much broke me,” said Yang, general manager of Nyob Zoo Milwaukee TV. “I told the cast and crew we are going to find resources to make the film.”

UWM students and high schoolers from the Hmong American Peace Academy make up most of the cast and crew of the film. The Hmong American Friendship Association Inc. chipped in funding.

The panel after the film will include Hmong health providers and other mental health experts. Milwaukee needs more Hmong providers, or providers who’ve taken time to learn about Hmong culture, Yang said. She hopes the film encourages more health professionals to consider the Hmong population, while inspiring those in need of services to reach out.

“It doesn’t always have to be the way it’s always been,” Yang said. “You don’t have to deal with mental health alone.”

Every film includes a talk-back with local experts. Saturday night’s film, “The Interrupters,” features CeaseFire, a group that worked to mediate conflicts and prevent escalating gun violence in Chicago. A leader of that group will join Milwaukee city officials after the film for a discussion about violence prevention.

A wide range of health resources will be on display at Kenilworth Square 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at “The Healthy You: Resource Fair and Forum.” The fair will feature a 3 p.m. talk by rapper and author Styles P, who owns a chain of juice bars and will discuss the benefits of juicing.

The fair will also include presentations and handouts on topics like youth mental health, trauma recovery, health screenings, housing, employment and financial matters.

Event details

Charlamagne's event starts at noon Thursday, Sept. 12, at Turner Hall Ballroom, 1040 Vel R. Phillips Ave. After a panel discussion with mental health professionals, Charlamagne is scheduled to speak at 1 p.m. Tickets, available at pabsttheater.org, are $10 for students, $15 for others in advance, and $20 at the door.

Rory Linnane reports on public health and works to make information accessible so readers can improve their lives and hold officials accountable. Contact Rory at (414) 801-1525 or rory.linnane@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @RoryLinnane.